If the Cougars (9-2, 5-2 in C-USA) win this Saturday at Robertson Stadium against Rice (2-9, 2-5), then they win the West and earn a spot in the league title game.

If the Cougars win against Rice and Southern Miss (7-4, 5-2) wins the East by defeating East Carolina (7-4, 6-1), then the C-USA Championship Game will be at Robertson Stadium.

If the Cougars win against Rice and Southern Miss loses, then East Carolina hosts the title game.

If the Cougars don’t win — at home — against a team that has been outscored 444-205, then they deserve whatever kind of rocks they receive in their holiday gift packages.

The precedent is that the Liberty Bowl will select the C-USA champion. The SMU Mustangs’ we’d-rather-go-to-the-Hawaii-Bowl shenanigans have brought to light that the Liberty Bowl doesn’t have to take the C-USA champs. The Liberty Bowl can go rogue, if it wishes, which means it could take a high-scoring UH team that has a marquee quarterback and a No. 23 Bowl Championship Series ranking.

Feel free to presume that UH coach Kevin Sumlin will not be emphasizing that particular point with his team in the next couple weeks.

Feel free to presume the Liberty Bowl will have interest in SMU down the road about the same time turkeys fly.

• • •

A blowout victory against Memphis didn’t stop the Cougars from dropping one spot — to 25th — in this week’s Associated Press poll.

Ole Miss jumped from unranked to 20th with a 25-23 victory against LSU. California jumped from unranked to 21st with a 34-25 victory against Stanford. North Carolina went from unranked to 23rd by whipping Boston College 31-13.

The top nine teams from last week stayed in place: Florida, Alabama, Texas, TCU, Cincinnati, Boise State, Georgia Tech, Pittsburgh and Ohio State. LSU dropped from 10th to 17th with its loss to Ole Miss, opening up a spot for Oregon. Oklahoma State, the team that was on the wrong end of the Cougars’ marquee victory is season, is 11th.

The Cougars moved up one spot, to 23rd, in the latest BCS standings. UH ranked 20th in the USA Today coaches and Harris Interactive polls. The human polls account for one-third of the BCS formula apiece. The other one-third comes from a combination of six computer polls, which place UH 27th.

• • •

Here is this week’s AP Top 25 ballot, with how I ranked the teams last week in parenthesis:

1. Florida (1)

2. Texas (2)

3. Alabama (3)

4. TCU (4)

5. Boise St. (5)

6. Cincinnati (6)

7. Pittsburgh (7)

8. Georgia Tech (8)

9. Oregon (10)

10. Ohio State (11)

11. Virginia Tech (12)

12. Oklahoma State (13)

13. Iowa (14)

14. Penn State (15)

15. Oregon State (17)

16. Clemson (18)

17. LSU (11)

18. BYU (20)

19. USC (21)

20. Cal (22)

21. Miami (24)

22. Houston (25)

23. North Carolina (NR)

24. Nebraska (NR)

25. Stanford (16)

Teams that fell out of the rankings: Wisconsin (19), Rutgers (23).

The regulars around here know the drill: Feel free to have your say. Unless you ask a question or request an explanation on some point about the rankings, I’ll let you have you have the last word.

• • •

Tom Penders has four days to plug up some leaks before the Cougars take on the Oklahoma Sooners in the first round of the Great Alaska Shootout.

The Cougars (1-1) fell behind by 26 points on the way to a 112-99 road defeat against the Nevada Wolf Pack on Saturday night. UH closed the deficit to six at one point but couldn’t muster up enough rebounding or defense to win on the road. The 112 points are the most allowed by a UH team since a 116-78 defeat at UAB on Jan. 9, 1999.

The Wolf Pack shot 61 percent (42 for 69), including 11 of 22 from behind the three-point line, and had a 57-27 advantage on the boards.

That’s no typo: 57-27. The Wolf Pack had as many offensive rebounds (17) as the Cougars had on defense (17).

Aubrey Coleman (32 points on 30 field-goal attempts) had seven rebounds for UH; nobody else on the team had more than four.

Armon Johnson worked over the Cougars for 24 points (8-of-11 shooting) and 12 assists. Joey Shaw had 26 points on 9-of-12 shooting, while Brandon Fields had 24 on 10-of-14 shooting. Clear Creek graduate Ray Kraemer came off the bench to light up the Cougars for 19 points (7-of-9 from the field, 4-of-6 on three-pointers) in 21 minutes.

Silver linings for the Cougars? They committed on five turnovers and forced 23. Junior college transfer Adam Brown, who played sparingly in the opener against Nicholls State, had 25 points and six steals off the bench. Brown shot 9-of-12 from the field, 5-of-8 on his threes. Zamal Nixon got the start at point guard, but Dez Wade (12 points, five assists, one turnover) got most of the minutes (31).

After such a promising debut against Nicholls state, center Maurice McNeil had five points and two rebounds in 16 minutes. Freshman Kirk Van Slyke got his second start but played only 14 minutes, contributing two points and two rebounds. Kelvin Lewis, who was so efficient in the opener (18 points on 10 field-goal attempts), shot 3-for-12 and had eight points.

“We hate to lose a game, but this was great basketball,” Penders said. “It’s a tough loss, but our kids learned a lot. We have got to bounce back.”

The 17th-ranked Sooners dropped to 2-1 with an 82-69 defeat at VCU — to previous employer of coach Jeff Capel. Without Blake Griffin, the Sooners are still searching for an identity.

“I knew our team wasn’t as good as everyone had us,” Capel said afterward. “This was a great game for us. I didn’t like the result but we’ll grow from this game.”

• • •

The UH women’s basketball team took its first loss of the season on Saturday, 72-54 at the No. 7 LSU Lady Tigers.

Junior Courtney Taylor scored 18 points and fell one rebound short of her 29th career double-double for the Cougars (3-1). Taylor shot 8-of-15 from the field; the rest of the team was 13-for-41. The Lady Tigers had a 50-35 advantage on the boards and scored 20 points of 18 UH turnovers.

The Cougars took a 12-8 lead, but LSU (3-1) responded with a 12-0 run and cruised to the victory. Lady Tigers coach Van Chancellor substituted liberally, giving nine players between 10 and 26 minutes of court time.

44 Responses

I don’t get it: How can we move up in the USA/Coaches poll to No. 20, but move down in the AP poll to No. 25 after a trouncing of Memphis the day before? I know how bad of a team Memphis is, but, man, no one can talk to me about the amount of bad teams the likes of Florida, Alabama, and Texas have played this year in their non-conference schedule. The AP folks need to call a spade a spade with all teams – not just a select few.

Last question: When doing bragging rights with friends and family, what do we call the Coogs – the 20th ranked team in the nation or the 25th ranked team?

Thanks Steve for your time and continued hard work.

EAT EM UP COOGS!

—-

I guess with the assorted polls, you can pick your favorite. The Chronicle’s policy is to use the AP rankings in all stories. … I obviously don’t agree with dropping UH; I moved it up from 25th to 22nd on my ballot. SC

Ole Miss was my last team out. Are the Rebels better than Nebraska or Stanford? Quite possibly. LSU was the first Ole Miss win of much note in my book, and it was a two-point cliff-hanger at home. (Don’t get me started on LSU’s late-game clock mismanagement, though that’s not Ole Miss’ fault.) I nearly dropped out Stanford, but it was coming off two really good wins, and I did give it a pretty severe drop as it is. I’ll keep evaluating Nebraska vs. Ole Miss. For what it’s worth, CollegeBCS.com — which is quite similar to the actual BCS formula — has Nebraska 25th and Ole Miss 26th. I’m not saying I take those rankings as gospel; for reasons I can’t quite fathom, that system has Utah at 21. I just don’t see the substance to Utah’s season that some do. Utah has played two quality teams and lost both games &dash; including one in which it didn’t belong on the same field as TCU. SC

This is precisely why I’ve been what people would consider a pessimist about UH’s chances of ending up as high as some people think they were. This is why, once UH had one loss, I felt like it had no chance of getting into the BCS mix. Teams such as North Carolina, Cal, etc., are able to jump UH with attention-getting wins in conference. UH beats Memphis by 41, and people say, “So what?” I’m not saying it’s right. I’m just saying that’s the way it plays out. I obviously didn’t think UH deserved to drop, but I’m just one man, one vote. SC

Hey SC, you missed mentioning LSU in there some place. Yesterday’s weather was rough at tne beginging og the game and THEN it became perfect football weather right after. So SC, what you think of next week’s game? Its CRAZY to think that once again, RICE is what separates from the title game…. SON OF a B! The one great thing I look out of yesterday’s game(besides Keenum) was that our D adjusted to that ASS running back they have. He only gained like 40 something yards on the ground in the second half. It still needs improvement, but a good start. Its ovious now that, everyone we play will try and run to control the clock. Now, I really want the title game to come to Houston. I think USM will give ECU a big fight next week. Soo much is on the line for them in that game. If we get USM here, its going to be crazy. I mean, they want to meet us again and we beat them in 06 for the title. OMG the suspense is killing me!!!!!

Come on COOGS, fill up Robertson, we are on the march!!

—-

I’m not sure what you mean when you say I missed mentioning LSU. I did mention LSU. … I don’t think it’s that crazy that Rice stands between UH and the title game. That’s what happens when you’re a contender and you play your rival in the regular-season finale. Big difference between last year’s Rice team and this year’s. No excuses for not winning this time. Rice had a good team last year. This year, not so much. SC

Just win out… the cards will fall where they may… but we’ve got to win out. We need to destroy Rice at home and not focus on anything but that for the next few days.

Also, and disagree with me Steve if you want, but if I were on the marketing team for the Liberty Bowl… it’s obvious who’d I’d go after in C-USA for the best ratings.

Go Coogs! Let’s finish strong!

—-

Bowls tend to take things such as crowds and how well a particular school travels into consideration. They want tourists. They want people to come in and spend money. On that front, East Carolina and Southern Miss might have the edge. You’d think UH would be the better TV draw. Will the Cougars sell tickets and bring fans (read: money?) SC

These rankings will drive a person crazy. I think we should be ranked at #20 as I had us last week at #22. If we win out including the conference championship we should be close to #15 going into a bowl game. Now, do you think the Liberty Bowl could get a 7 win SEC team for the Cougars to play if we win the Conf. Champ.?

—-

I don’t know whom the SEC will send to the Liberty Bowl. I’d say Arkansas is a pretty good bet, thought it could shake up things by beating LSU this week in Baton Rouge.

#8 LSU loses for the -3rd- time, #17 Stanford loses for the -4th- time, #16 Wisconsin loses for the 3rd time, and Houston goes DOWN a slot? 9 of the teams ranked above Houston have 3 losses. This is a complete joke.

—

I don’t know what your quibble is about Wisconsin, because it fell out of the rankings. LSU has a good case for being ahead of UH; the Tigers’ losses are to Florida, Alabama and Ole Miss, all in competitive games. Stanford fell out of the poll, too, so you’re grasping at straws there. What got UH was people jumping teams such as Ole Miss and North Carolina and Cal ahead of UH. And I cannot for the life of me figure out why Utah is ahead of UH. Yeah, Utah’s losses are against Oregon and TCU. But Utah’s best victory to date is against Air Force. At home. SC

Steve, we (HOUSTON) defeat our opponent by a large margin and we drop down in the ranks. What in the world is going on here? Can anyone please explain this to me like if I was a little kid (sarcasm). This is so darn unacceptable.

—-

I can understand deciding not to move up UH for beating a terrible Memphis team. But UH falling doesn’t make much sense to me. I guess the way some voters would explain it is that it’s more a matter of rewarding teams such as Ole Miss, California and North Carolina. There’s a rationale for that, and I might have bought into it if UH had slogged its way to a 42-31 victory or something. Comparative scores aren’t the end-all, but UH beat Memphis by 10 more points than Ole Miss did. The flip side is, Memphis still had some hope when it faced Ole Miss in the season opener. The Memphis team that took the field Saturday looked like a pretty dispirited bunch. SC

I for one think the rankings are BS (and that does not stand for Bowl Championship). However as long as we remain on the top 25 list that is all that matters, I guess.

The most important thing right now is that our guys take care of Rice. No “Ifs” or “buts” about it, that is the only thing we have control over. Get a win (against Rice) to secure a spot at the Conf. Championship game, do it to keep us in the (insert AP, BCS, USAToday, etc here) top 25, and most of all get a win here as payback to the smack down Rice gave us last year.

BTW – Beer is nice but when the rain is coming down and it is cold as heck, I really wish the vendors at the ROB had more hot cocoa or coffee available. Think you can pull some strings with the big wigs on campus Steve ?

—

If I had any influence, they’d have Starbucks in the press box. But they don’t. SC

Gosh ppl, why do you all ask the same questions over and over? The man has answered numerous times. Is it really surprising that no one respects a C-USA team? Please get over it! The rankings aren’t even fun anymore, and I’m just glad we are still in there.

So who do you think poses a greater threat/ would rather face? ECU or USM? I think we could beat them both, but I’d much rather play USM again at HOME! USM offense is a lot better though in my opinion,and they looked crazy good against Tulsa last night.But, I lose faith when we go on the road. Robertson is usually a sure bet. I would love to travel to Memphis this year! ;-P

—-

I think it’d be awfully tough to beat Southern Miss twice, even if at home. USM sure seemed to have a good idea of how to attack the UH defense. I’m not sure what counter measures the Cougars have at their disposal. Yes, it’d be tough to win at East Carolina. But the Pirates don’t have a great offense. If UH could get something going early, it could but East Carolina in a catch-up mode. I don’t think EC is particularly well-equipped to play that way. SC

Jones’ mischief in regards to the Hawaii Bowl are damaging to the conference and further evidence that all strategy by Mack Rhoades should be focused on leaving it for the next available better alternative (not waiting for the greatest possible alternative).

I’m really surprised the conference hasn’t taken that small band of refugee preppies to the wood shed.

I personally think the Liberty Bowl, it’s venue, and it’s spot on the calendar are quite a reward to winning the conference – and probably exceed

reciprocal value of the conference in general.

If I were Uncle Summie I’d be praising the Liberty Bowl front and center at every opportunity. Not just to curry favor but to defend the conference from more self-inflicted chicanery.

Steve – you do a great job of telling it like it is without being a jerk. It’s appreciated.

Seriously folks – it’s a one spot drop. If it happens again, we’re out of the top 25 – I know. And that will hurt if it happens. We just had too many chicken-sh*t wins over teams we should have beaten more easily. And did you see that RICE of all teams beat UTEP yesterday? That hurts.

Look at where we are compared to last year (heck, the last few years) and think about how awesome it is. I can’t wait til next season.

FOR F SAKES. I DONT GIVE A HOOT THAT RICE WON OVER UTEP. LOOK, they played UTEP at home and we played UTEP on the road. Also, Memphis also beat UTEP and look what happend to them. Stop this foolish bickering. Support your team…. GO COOGS!!!

1. It is to be expected that UH would begin to slip in the polls simply because of that old demon, Strength of Schedule. Hey, I don’t like it any more than the rest of the posters. Our losses to UTEP and UCF are coming back to haunt us. We just have to play through it and hope Southern Miss wins this coming weekend.

2. I spent $4.95 last night to watch the internet broadcast of the UH-Nevada game. A few observations there, also. Nevada seems as athletic as UH, only bigger. They played the kind of game UH used to play — NBA style. BUT, in the end UH almost pulled it out. Which gets to my main point. Tom Penders did a masterful job of coaching. To me he was brilliant, considering that 3 months ago these guys didn’t even know each other. When the half-half score is 61-44 or some such and you bring it down to, I believe, 6 points different, you have found yourself as a team. Coach was all up in their faces and there was no quit in them. Captain Tom may actually have the team he has been telling us he has. Can’t wait.

Finally, and listen up COOGS. The Chron is giving us the opportunity to have a blog devoted to UH.

To make this work, I need your help. Log onto the blog, leave some comments and generally make your presence felt. If we do this we will become a featured blog on the Chronicle blog page. Please note, the blog site has moved (for those of you who have already posted) It can be found at:

The numbers were obviously very good. He was playing against a dispirited defense, so you have to take that into consideration, but he did make some sharp throws — especially the deep post to E.J. Smith. He didn’t seem to have the greatest pocket presence, but I want to be careful about reading too much into that. For one thing, Keenum is exceptional on that front. For another, Turner hasn’t had much game action so it’d be understandable if he’s not dialed in on everything. He was definitely more impressive than during the preseason scrimmages or the Northwestern State game. I’ve seen him make the occasional stunning throw. What we have no read on at this point is consistency, but he does have some skills. SC

Wuahaha…. okay. I have analyzed the Tulsa vs SO. Miss game SC and I conclude that if we play them again… we will win. However, things will be intense and I mean Texas Tech intense. Also, for ECU, their offense is poor and their D is good. However, since we beat them last year, I am sure we can beat them again. However, they are very good at doing one thing and that is cause turnovers. Their opponents fumble like crazy and we also had like 5 turnovers against them last year. Now, they have a good running back and that is why their QB is doing well lately because he is very turnover prone himself. We just need to focus, its all about us and not worry about anyone else. GO COOGS!!

Steve, what are your thoughts on this year’s Cougar Basketball team? Do you think (in the limited sample size to base this on) the team has a chance to gel, or will we continue to see one-on-one, selfish style basketball, and thus inconsistency? We have as much raw talent as I can remember in my 6 years of being at UH (Adam Brown appears like he could be the beast I was hoping he would be). We have too many guys with above-average scoring ablities to keep getting blown out by decent but nowhere near great teams like Nevada.

—

I’ve seen them play once against a below-average team in a season opener, so I’m really not ready to make any assessments. I saw two mid-season games last season, so I don’t really consider myself qualified to make a lot of judgments. Why don’t we let the season unfold a little bit? SC

The Liberty Bowl isn’t worried about what June Jones said or didn’t say. They are looking at it from the SEC side as much as anything – hoping probably for Arkansas which would bring the most fans into town. The C-USA foe will be probably Houston or USM – both good matchups.

As far as expelling SMU from C-USA if they had turned down the Liberty Bowl – C-USA will NEVER let go of the Dallas-Ft. Worth market.

Given the prevailing perceptions about our league, being ranked at all with two losses is a gift. We have an amazingly talented team, but they could use another off-week (if not another off-season). I lean toward ECU on the road as the better matchup, but I’d also like to see Houston get another chance to sell out the Rob for So. Miss.

It’s a good thing Cougars have 9 lives. Thank you, Marshall, and I personally forgive the whole band cart thing. Patrick Edwards seems to have gotten over it (though I wonder what was going on in his head when he didn’t pull in that one-hander before his TD).

Coach, if you’d ever consider running up the score, please do it Saturday. Cotton looked good, but a 750-yard game with 10 TD’s for Case would really help to address that one last issue we’re carrying from last season. MOB, you’ve gotta fake cramps. You owe that to us for our pwnage of the Graham-bag. Eat ’em up!

I felt a little sorry for Memphis yesterday as they seemed to be playing out the season. Memphis is serious about moving to the Big East and firing Tommy West does make a statement. Who they replace him with will also send a message to the Big East and they can’t mess up this hire.

The parallel here is that UH needs to make a statement to the MWC and Big East about our basketball program. I appreciate Coach Penders’ service to UH, but it’s time to make that much needed statement and bring in a coach that can get us to the next level and also help the program be attractive to the conferences we’re courting.

I wonder how the old time “wallets” eerrrr excuse me alumi, feel about the way June Jones is running his mouth in Dallas about how his boys wanted to play on the island- especially since SMU lost Saturday?? HHMMMmmmm?

Read the post, Tax Man. No one asked for SMU to be expelled. And all Bowls are concerned with public comments that minimize their importance. It’s not a matter of being “worried” (your words not mine). It’s a matter of being attractive.

What a difference 2 decades make. If our coach had been Jenkins he would have never called the dogs off.

Sumlin pulled Keenum mid way in the 3rd quarter.

He did not try to pad his stats at all. With a second string QB and receiving core, UH scored once more. All the drive and determination just seemed to then leave Memphis.

However, With texas leading Kansas by a wide margin, McCoy stayed in the game and threw for a couple of more touch downs and truly padded his stats. Texas padded the score after the outcome was decided.

I wish we could’ve played Oklahoma this year and after they played texas. Tech did a number on them as they had no answer for the Tech offense.

OK’s offense is completely missing since their QB injury. OK state will loose to OK since their starting QB is also injured and thats why they barely beat Colorado.

I am following up on hfc comments about coach penders. the coogs under penders have avg 20 wins per season, before penders we avg about 9wins. being a season ticket holder from 1365 miles away, the coogs will have another banner year. its not the coach, the schedule, its c-usa. our football team is going through the same thing, 9-2 and ranked 25th. sumlin is a big time coach, if we are in the big12, or big 10 we would be in the top 15.let the season play out,and be happy we have two great coaches finally in the two best programs. we are lucky to have them, because we were medicore before they arrived. my best jim perry

How fortunate we are to have gotten the help we needed from Marshall. I followed their game with SMU on the net and it was agonizing. A Marshall loss would have really undermined what has been an outstanding season, despite the two slip ups on the road. As it stands, winning the conference, the goal at the start of the season,is still possible.

As far as who to root for to win the East, that’s a tough one. While I agree with your assesment of ECU as defensively strong and offensively weak, I’m not sure that I would favor traveling over having to beat USM twice in Houston.

Since I’m already looking past Rice, might as well go all the way and think of the prefered opponent in the Liberty Bowl. I would love to face either Arkansas or Ole Miss. I think that the prospect of Case playing on the same field as either Mallet or Snead is very exciting and it would generate quite a bit of national interest. Either team would also be a huge challenge and a tough gauge of just how well our guys can play.

Quote: “I know how bad of a team Memphis is, but, man, no one can talk to me about the amount of bad teams the likes of Florida, Alabama, and Texas have played this year in their non-conference schedule. The AP folks need to call a spade a spade with all teams – not just a select few.”

Yeah, that Texas schedule is so bad. Your two biggest wins are teams Texas plays every year. So call a spade a spade. You have to schedule an amazing non-conference schedule because your conference schedule is quite weak. Texas on the other hand can play a weak non-conf schedule due to the relative strength of their conf schedule. Don’t forget that Texas is 4-0 to Cougar High’s 2-2 on common opponents.

—

You were actually making a decent overall point, and then you go and screw it up with the Cougar High mumbo-jumbo. Nice job of driving to the 1-yard-line and then fumbling away the ball. SC

I think the coogs are right were they are supposed to be in the rankings. We had our chances to close out mediocre teams and didn’t capitalize. Injuries for sure hurt us on the defensive side of the ball. If we can improve our defense for next season…not sure how we could get worse, then I think we have a good shot at the BCS next year. With the talent coming back on offense we should be a preseason top-25.

I’m just excited that we are playing meaningful games late in November, the game this weekend should be fun and then on to the championship.

I think if we get Ark, it will be very tough. They are an offensive machine just like us. They have a running back the size of a truck. We can beat them, but our D will have step up like you cannot imagine. What you think SC?

—

Let’s see what shape UH is in after the next two games. Arkansas is a dangerous team that improved as the season progressed. It looks like a program on the way up. SC

See…See, we should have never taken out Case in the third quarter. It could have been 84-14 if we kept piling it on. Then we wouldn’t have dropped in rank. What was Cotton? 13/16 173 yards 1 TD. We just can’t have that. Not enough.

You just are not going to get much respect from the AP for beating Memphis by any amount obviously…

How many teams ahead of the Cougars in the rankings have lost two games to teams as demonstrably poor as UTEP and UCF? Personally, with those losses, I think a top 25 finish should be considered a gift.